Thursday, May 3, 2012

Steel River were a rock band from Toronto, Ontario. They were John Dudgeon, Bob Forrester, Rob Cockell, Tony Dunning and Ray Angrove. They started out as a R'n'B band before changing their name in 1969 to Steel River. They enlisted the support of renown producer, Greg Hambleton. Hambleton ran the Axe Records label and produced works for Charity Brown and Thundermug (see blog 8/29/10). His brother is Fergus Hambleton of The Sattalites (see blog 9/10/10) as well as A Passing Fancy fame. Steel River released their debut album, Weighin' Heavy, in 1970. The album did very well here in Canada and was also released internationally, helping the band tour abroad. The success of the album was largely due to their first single which was a Jay Telfer (A Passing Fancy) song entitled, Ten Pound Note. This tune still receives some heavy airplay on classic rock radio in Toronto. You can check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWyowxEDEL4. The band would go on to release one more album in 1971 which again, contained a successful single entitled, Southbound Train. The band would perform together until 1974 before breaking up. Today, their discography remains a rarity. At the time of this blog, there were vinyl copies trading on Ebay and Discogs between $20 and $50. Thanks for reading and enjoy!